THE PERSECUTlON of WOMEN AS WITCHES

Women were revered as Earth Mother figures in ancient times. In Greece which was considered the intellectual civilization of the world at that time, crucial political decisions were made by consulting the simple peasant girls who were Apollo's oracles at Delphi.

It was the Judea-Christian culture that severely altered women's place in the scheme of things. In the book of Genesis, Eve was given the blame for man's fall and her legacy was written:
"Unto the woman, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail, in pain thou shall bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Woman was given the menstrual cycle and the agony of childbirth, but these did not compromise her full punishment. Patriarchy was the other half of that ancient curse, and the Christian civilization continued with the highly developed Jewish tradition of misogyny and sexual repression.

The Bible set sex out as the source of knowledge, civilization and death. For the sin of Eden, Adam must go to work and Eve must bear children. Thus, the human family and work-ethic sprung up from roots of sexual repression and guilt.

The Catholic Church has maintained an objection to abortion, thus continuing the ancient biblical curse which made childbearing a painful punishment for that original sin in the Garden of Eden. The church has retained this historical dimension of the myth of feminine evil.

By the Middle Ages men's earlier awe of woman altered from the point of viewing her as the personification of Mother Nature to that of viewing her as an avaricious and wicked soul. The fact that women produced living humans from their bodies was supernatural itself.

Women were then even blamed for storms and droughts. Men feared that women might gain power, so they dominated them with brute strength and used them as scapegoats. Joan of Arc was tried for heresy, but political power was the real issue involved.

The Judea-Christian concept of women as the original criminal has resulted in the slaughter of millions of people in a period of three hundred years. Since the late 1400's it has been estimated that at least nine million people have been executed for the sin of witchcraft. The majority of these victims have been women, for witchcraft seems to have been a female crime. Men were generally protected from such accusations because they were considered to be of superior intellect and virtue in both the Judean and Christian cultures.

Little is known about these women who were murdered, for the historians were male and felt that the massacre of witches was too unimportant to chronicle, except as mere footnotes. Three centuries of burning women at the stake in agony was passed over lightly, the genocide ignored because of an acceptance of the Bible's proclamation that females were evil.

Some of these witches were labeled poisoners, for they used drugs like aconite, amanita, hashish, laudanum, belladonna and organic amphetamines. Forgotten were their pioneer development of analgesics and medical treatments using herbs. During these trials, what women said in their own defense was ignored because the only records were written by their enemies-- men. The trials became a way of disposing of unwanted women, those that were old, different and non-conforming. In A Room Of One's Own, Virginia Woolf wrote:
"When one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet or some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor crazed with the torment that her gift had given her."

Perhaps we can better understand this phenomenon if we zero in on the witch trials of Massachusetts in the 1690's, even though the number executed there was microscopic compared to the millions put to death in England and on the European continent during the late Middle Ages. We have accurate records from Salem and the statistics show that more women than men were persecuted as witches. Of the 141 accused, 104 were women, of the 31 people convicted, 25 were women, and of the 20 executed, 14 were women.

We should look first at the young girls involved in these trials, for in Salem during the late 1600's young girls were ignored for the most part. Their spirits were as repressed by the society in which they lived as their legs were restricted by the long gowns that they were forced to wear. The Puritan Church hammered away at them with lusty tales of the Devil, continually painting him as the arch-criminal. He was the everlasting antagonist and proved to be a fascination in this never-ending detective story of crime.

When winter closed in on Salem Village, females were shut off from all outside activities. In contrast, men were relieved now from the heavier, chores and they could take their muskets into the forest and shoot deer, wild turkey, or a marauding fox or wolf. They could fetch a line, cut through the ice and fish or they could turn to odd jobs of carpentry or other secondary trades.

There were no diversions for females in winter time though, and they rarely got out of the house except to go to church. In summer they could pick berries or carry beer to the men working in the fields, but with the snow came the monotonous round of chores without any outlet for physical activity or childish mischief.

It was Tituba, the half-savage slave from Barbados who entertained these young girls during these winter months. She showed them tricks, spells, and fragments of Voodoo that she remembered from her own childhood. She told them tales, murmured nonsense rhymes, and gave these girls more attention than their own kinfolk.

Many theories have been offered for the young girls' possession in Salem. The most popular thesis has been that they were afflicted with hysteria due to the stress and repression in their lives, and that they used these fits to avail themselves of an opportunity to rebel against the restrictions placed upon them by the pious adult society in which they lived. Some psychologists have felt that some of these girls had paranoid tendencies which were hereditary. Linda Caporael, a graduate student in psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara theorizes that the girls' madness was due to a fungus in grain rye called "ergot," which contains a hallucinogenic similar to LSD. Ergot could have caused the convulsions, mental disturbances and perceptual distortions. But for lack of a better explanation of the phenomena, the New England Puritans seized upon witchcraft. One of the bewitched girls, twelve-year-old Ann Putnam lived on a farm in the swampy part of Salem, where her father raised grain which proved to be contaminated. Her mother and two other girls living on the farm were similarly afflicted. Further evidence of ergot poisoning offered by Linda Caparael was the language used by these accusers pointing out the witches. Their claims of biting, pinching and pricking by pins could allude to a crawling and tingling sensation usually experienced by ergot victims.

There have been other theories for the girls' strange behavior. A Tory governor claimed the afflicted girls were an early case of mob action. George Beard, the inventor of the electric chair claimed that the girls were in touch with spirits.

It has been suggested by others that Tituba, who was an expert in herbs might have induced the girls to experiment with the jimson weed, and their bedevilment might actually have been drug highs similar to the LSD trips experienced today.

If this was true, Tituba's motives are uncertain, but there are some who feel that she might have done this in vengeance for having been torn away from the warm Barbados Islands and her black kinsmen and brought to the harsh northern landscape to live among rigid unsympathetic aliens who worked her exceedingly hard for long hours.

Whatever the cause of the girls' hysterical fits, the fact remained that it was the poor and disabled who were imprisoned and hanged. There was no such thing as a democracy among witches. The rich and well-connected people accused by the girls were able to flee New England and the judges ignored the extradition laws.

In researching these trials, it becomes obvious that the accusations became a vehicle that enabled the community to rid themselves of the old, sick and other undesirable women in their midst.

Sarah Good was disliked by the community because she smoked a pipe and tramped around the area begging for food. When the magistrate asked Sarah why she did not attend church services like the other women, she snapped, "For want of cloose." At the time of her conviction, she was carrying another child. She gave birth in prison, but no one bothered to record the event. After Sarah's arrest, her five-year-old daughter, Dorcas, ran around the countryside like a mad dog, biting the girls for what they had done to her mother. A warrant was duly sworn out for her, as it was obvious that she too was a witch, so off to prison she went. They did not hang five-year-old witches, but Dorcas never recovered from her imprisonment. Shut off from the sun and cooped up with aging women in all degrees of piety, iniquity, imbecility and intelligence, her face became pinched and sullen and her hair became wild and matted. When she came out of prison, history records that she was never "hale and well-looking again." We are left to guess at her mental state.

Along with young Dorcas, others of a tender age were tried and convicted of witchcraft. These included Sarah Carrier, age eight; Abigail Johnson, who was age eleven and her brother, Stephen, who was thirteen-years-old.

Bridget Bishop was a flashy dresser who sometimes wore a "red paragon bodice" for best and she also owned a great store of laces. She was a tavern-keeper who sometimes allowed young people to loiter at unseemingly hours playing at "shovelboard." William Stacy, a neighbor testified in her behalf, stating that he had once admired her, for when he was twenty-two, she had been kind and visited him when he had smallpox. We can only guess at what Bridget herself said and did in court, because Stephen Sewall, the recorder took no pains to write her words down.

Martha Carrier's sin was having pockmarked children. When she refused to confess to the crime of witchcraft, her two oldest boys were tied heels to heels, but the blood came out of their mouths before they would testify against their mother. Eventually under torture, they admitted that they were witches, too, and that their mother had made them so. At this point the youngest child without much persuasion declared that her mother was a black cat. When asked how she knew, she replied, "The cat said so." Sarah Osburne was scandalously remiss in her church attendance. The fact that she was ill and not fit to be out of bed made little impact upon the court. The constables had to support her during her trial, and she was put upon a nag and ridden to Ipswich prison. The fetid air, cold floors and meager food extracted their toll. She grew weaker each day until she died on May 10th.

Martha Cory proclaimed to the court: "I do not believe in witches!" The court asked her how she could make such a statement when three proven witches had already been taken in their parish. She continued to deny the reality of witchcraft to the end.

Rebecca Nurse was guilty of the crime of being partially deaf. At the time of her accusation she had been infirmed with a stomach complaint and had not left her house for nine days. Rebecca was a well-loved grandmother in her community, but she had grown too hard of hearing to understand a crucial question from the jurors. "Oh Lord, help me!," she cried out in court and spread her hands out helplessly. Her gesture was immediately imitated by the girls, who then proceeded to duplicate every move that Rebecca made. Those in the courtroom started to weep for the afflicted girls. Rebecca did not. This was interpreted by Judge Hawthorne as obvious guilt, for would not an innocent woman weep like other women? But tears are not possible for witches. After her conviction, though Rebecca was unable to walk, she was carried from Salem prison in a chair to the church, where she was excommunicated --sent not only to the gallows, but doomed also to eternal damnation. Rebecca collapsed from the ordeal and had to be carried back to prison. Shortly afterwards her sister, Sarah Cloyce, was also sentenced to prison.

The courts were convinced that the convicted witches were still working their witchcraft upon the poor girls, so the authorities ordered that chains be put upon those in prison to circumvent their activities. The expense of these chains was charged to the accounts of the witches.

Life was wretched for those convicted and imprisoned. They were confined to foul overcrowded cells, forced to wear heavy chains upon their limbs, and suffer further indignities by having prison officials sweep down upon them periodically to search their bodies for witch marks.

After the trials had ended, those who had been convicted of witchcraft were not released until their families paid their prison fees. Unfortunately, not every accused witch had kinsmen willing to mortgage their farms. No one was interested in restoring old Sarah Doston to circulation, so she remained in prison until she died.

Abigail Faulkner and Elizabeth Proctor had been condemned to death, but were reprieved until their expected babies could be born. Both women left prison with their jail-born infants in their arms.

Tituba, the slave had no one to pay her prison fees, so she was sold back into slavery and sent south, never to be heard of again.

Noyes Parris, the son of the witch-hunting parson became a victim of the times also and grew up only to die insane.

History had an annoying way of failing to record complete data. The girls involved were never allowed to tell the truth and with the passage of time, the truth became much too complex.

The Hardest Lessons

HARDEST LESSONS OF THE OLD RELIGION

Witch's Note: A High Priestess Alastriona found these Lessons seven years ago and used these to create and promote peace and harmony in her Coven. I do not know if these lessons are 'Official' or widely used, but I do believe that these Lessons need to be more encouraged. And I am hoping that these Lessons will help bring peace and harmony to many others too.

(1) Be As Sensitive To The Needs Of The Other And As Willing To help As A Newlywed (Be Excellent To Each Other)

(2) Prepare For Being The Compliment One To Another As A Oneness Of Service In A Constructive Manner Ever (Let Not Either Be A Drain On The Other)

(3) As Helpmates, Be Forgiving, Find The Good; One That Enableth Another To Help Her/Himself Has Gained More Than One That Taketh A City

(4) Do Not Block The Development Of The Other

(5) Aid To Others Brings Release, Peace, And Harmony

(6) One Will Never Find Harmony By Finding Fault With What The Other Does

(7) Work Toward Oneness Of Purpose And Spirituality In A Complimentary Manner To Achieve And Maintain Wholeness

(8) One Cannot Change Or Improve Anyone But Their Self

(9) One Can Only Change Their Attitude About The Other

(10) Unconditional Love
( Before One Can Accept Others, One Must Accept Their Self. Accepting That Others Are On Their Appropriate Paths And That They Are Right For Who They Are. We Must Learn To Accept And Tolerate Others As Being A Part Of One's Self)

Be: Cheerful, Forgiving, Helpful, Hopeful, Supportive, Optimistic

Shun: Criticism, Condemnation, Complaint

Use: Encouragement, Gentleness, Kindness, Love, Patience, Tolerance

The Witches Creed

Hear now the word of the Witches,
the secrets we hid in the night,
When dark was our destinys pathway,
That now we bring forth in the light.
Mysterious Water and Fire,
The Earth and the wide-ranging Air,
By hidden Quintessence we know Them,
and we will keep silent and dare.
The birth and rebirth of all Nature,
the passing of Winter and Spring,
We share with the life Universal,
rejoice in the Magical Ring
Four times in the year the Great Sabbat,
returns, and the Witches are seen,
At Lammas and Candelas dancing,
on May Eve and old Halloween
When daytime and nighttime are equal,
when sun is at greatest and least,
The four lesser Sabbats are summoned,
again Witches gather in feast.
Thirteen silver moons in a year are,
thirteen is the Covens array,
Thirteen times at Esbat make merry,
for each golden year and a day.
The power has passed down the ages,
each time between woman and man
Each century unto the other,
ere times and the ages began.
When drawn is the Magickal circle,
by sword or athame of power,
the compass between two worlds lies,
in the land of shades of that hour.
Our world has no right to know it,
and the world beyond will tell naught,
The oldest of Gods are invoked there,
the great work of Magic is wrought.
For two are the mystical pillars,
that stand at the gate of the shrine,
And two are the powers of Nature,
the forms and the forces divine.
And do what thou wilt be the challenge,
so be it in love that harms none,
For this is the only commandment,
By Magick of old be it done.
Eight words the Witches Rede fulfill:
If it Harms none, Do what Thou Will!

A Pagan dies and, to his great surprise, he finds himself standing before some pearly gates.

The Pagan asks, "Where am I?"

Peter says, "You're at the gates of heaven."

The Pagan says, "But I don't believe in heaven."

Peter frowns at him. "You're one of those Pagans, aren't you?"

"Yes. I believe I'm in the wrong place; I'm supposed to go to Summerland."

Peter says, "Sorry. We took over Summerland, and it's temporarily closed for remodeling."

"What should I do now?"

Peter says, "Well, since we don't allow Pagans in heaven, you have to go to hell. Sorry. Just follow that path that leads downward and to the left."

The Pagan walks down to hell, where the gates are standing open. He walks in and finds beautiful meadows, happy animals, and clear streams of water.

He walks on in and begins exploring, and after a few minutes a courtly gentleman walks up to him and bows politely. "Hello, I'm Satan. You must be the guy that St. Peter phoned me about. Are you a Pagan?"

"Yes, I am. What's going to happen now?"

Satan says, "Well, the fishing's pretty good, if you enjoy that sort of thing. There's a little refreshment stand down the road. And I believe the Pagan meeting grounds are right over the next hill."

Suddenly, a hole opens up in the sky above, and a yawning chasm opens directly underneath it. The stench of sulphur fills the air. Hundreds of screaming, tortured souls drop down into the flaming pit, which immediately closes up with a thud.

The Pagan, hardly believing what he just saw, asks Satan, "And what was THAT ???

Satan rolls his eyes. "Oh, just ignore them. They're Christians; they wouldn't have it any other way."

THE WAR AGAINST WITCH'S

Consider first the root of such antagonism. The environment which fostered the "witch craze" was carefully cultivated by the medieval Catholic Church, whose clergy was unforgivably corrupt, and whose major goal at the time was not to spread the word of God but to gain political control of Europe. Thus we must examine the situation not from the viewpoint of warring religions, but from the arena of political rivals. In pre-Christian Europe, the people were often followers of a polytheistic religious tradition which revered Nature and the natural powers of the world around them. In the Celtic lands, which covered most of Western Europe, there existed a feudal societal structure which placed people in certain classes, and during that time there existed a class of people descended, socially if not through blood lines, from the ancient Druids called the Wica, or Wita.

This word has been defined many ways, but is mostly thought to have designated the "wise ones" or those who worked with mystical knowledge. This term is also suspected to have been derived from the Norse word weik, which relates to things connected with magic and religion and means "to bend or shape." Both words gave rise to the term "witch," which doesn't seem to have been used until the late 1200's and has been defined by the Council of American Witches as one who "seeks to control the forces within her/himself that make life possible in order to live wisely and well without harm to others and in harmony with nature." In old European villages, the Wica "not only led the religious rites but also had to have knowledge of herbal lore, magick and divination; they had to be doctor, lawyer, magician, priest. To the people, the Wica were plenipotentiaries between them and the gods. But, at the great festivals, they became almost like gods themselves" (Buckland 3). The Wica held a very important place in European society; even the Kings would never think of acting without first consulting his Witan, the Council of Wise Ones.

Now, enter the missionary Christians. Contrary to common thought, the whole continent did not immediately convert to Christianity in accordance with the designs of the Roman Empire. In fact, after the fall of Rome many countries reverted back to their traditional religions, which had survived quietly all along. But, as the Latin Church grew in strength, more and more political leaders did in fact convert, albeit for political alliance with the Church rather than religious reasons. Whole countries were considered Christian when in fact only the ruling class had converted, and in the country side the Old Ways were still practiced. Thus the term "pagan" arose from the Latin pagani, which means "people who live in the country." As cities grew and a decidedly urban/rural split developed, the word became more of an insult, an equivalent to our modern day "country bumpkin," and later broadened more to incorrectly designate any person who was not Christian.

Pope Gregory the Great attempted the first mass conversion of Europe. He instructed his followers to enter the pagan temples, smash idols, consecrate and rededicate the temples and groves to the Christian God in the hopes that worshippers would continue to come to their spiritual places regardless of the house that stood there. He was also a pioneer for the adaptation phase of the Church in which countless traditions, holidays, and even deities of the Witches were molded and adapted to fit into the new Christian religion. For example, Easter, one of the holiest Christian holidays, was actually taken from the old festival Ostara. Ostara was a Welsh spring festival honoring the goddess Eostre, whose name was taken for the new Christian holiday in honor of Jesus Christ's resurrection. Brigit, a Celtic goddess of great importance, was given sainthood in an attempt to win her followers to the Church. Also, Christmas, the alleged birthday of Jesus, actually takes place far from when his "historical" birthday might have been. Christmas is actually celebrated to coincide with the Witches' festival of Yule, where evergreen trees were decorated as a symbol that life can survive the winter, and the birth of the witches' Sun King is celebrated with a feast.Pope Gregory was largely successful, but still his plan was undermined, for when the first Christian churches were built, pagan stonemasons and woodcutters were hired to work on them, and these clever artisans included many images of their own deities in the churches' carvings and architecture. Even today these figures can be seen in the oldest of churches in Europe.

Furthermore, the very existence of such adapted holidays as Easter and Christmas, among other traditions and myths, prove that Gregory did not entirely win...Christianity did not replace the Old Ways, it merely swallowed much of them up.With such slow progress, the Church began to explore new ways to win the pagans over to their side, and so it happened in Europe that the war against the witches began. As illustrated earlier, the Wica were an integral part of old European society, and as a rival political power it was only natural for the Church to want to be rid of them.

It is often said that "the gods of an old religion become the devils of a new," (Buckland 4) and that is exactly what happened in Europe. The Church's line of reasoning went something along these lines: their Devil had horns, and the God of the Witches was often depicted as having horns, therefore they must be the same entity. The Church began to spread this "logic" among its followers, stipulating that those who followed the Old Ways were following the Devil, and were therefore anti-Christian and evil. Laws against homeopathic medicine, which included herbalism and midwifery, were passed in accordance with decrees formulated hundreds of years ago at the Second Council of Nicaea aligning anything esoteric in nature with the Devil and evil. In a final direct effort to remove the Wica from village control and power, they were scapegoated for all kinds of problems ranging from bad weather to infertile crops and sick children. In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII infused the war against Witchcraft with new life and vigor, making it a mission of God to exterminate all followers of the Old Ways, all Witches. Two years later, Kramer and Sprenger wrote and distributed "The Witch Hammer," a book which educated and instructed those who would fight the holy war against Witches. Although the approval of the book was forged, since it had in fact been rejected by the current censory board, the book sparked a mass hysteria known as the "witch craze" of Europe, a madness that did not trickle off for three hundred years and led to the death of nearly nine million people.What may turn out to be the greatest religious controversy birthed from that environment of fear and manipulation arises in modern day America. Within the past five decades, America has seen the resurgence of what is termed the "Neo-Pagan Movement," a revival of the Old Ways and Paganism as it truly was: not just a bunch of silly country people, but a nature-based religion seeing divinity in Nature and thus revering Nature, a tradition of people celebrating the seasonal shifts with festivals and honoring a great Mother Goddess and her consort God in their myriad forms.

Within this umbrella movement there exists another revival of Witchcraft under the name "Wicca." The Wiccan revival was started and led by a man named Gerald Gardner in Great Britain immediately following the repeal of the British anti-Witchcraft laws. Gardner published a book in 1954 called "Witchcraft Today" in which he not only revealed that he was an initiate of a coven of Witches whose lineage dated back thousands of years, but that he wanted to reveal and revive what he called The Old Religion. He used the term Wicca for three reasons: to encompass the feeling of a grassroots movement, since "Wica" was the old European word for Witches, to avoid the fear, hocus-pocus, and disbelief associated with the word "Witchcraft," and finally because the religion he wanted to spread was not actually Witchcraft, but a reinvention of a Celtic-based tradition of Witchcraft to meet the spiritual needs of modern society. Gardner used the scant information he had been given by his coven and combined it with his extensive research into Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn, and mythology to form the Grimoire of what came to be known as Gardnerian Wicca. As a reconstructed version of the Old Ways, steeped in ceremonial magic and European myth, Wicca immediately aligned itself with the Neo-Pagan movement, with which its followers shared many aspects and beliefs.

First, both Wicca and Paganism were polytheistic. Both groups validated and recognized the gods of the other, since polytheism implies that the creative forces of the universe exist in many forms, but are all truly part of the same source. Also, in an effort to fill the gaps of a traditionally male-dominated Judeo-Christian society, both Wicca and Paganism emphasized the importance of the Goddess and women, equally as powerful and in many branches even more powerful than the God and men. Both groups revered Nature and railed against the rape of the earth accomplished under industrialization, and rallied together to spawn many activist groups. They could celebrate the turn of the seasons together in ritual, and both traditions practiced and believed in magic. For Pagans and Wiccans, the practice of magic embodies the idea that as individuals we not only have the power and ability, but the natural right to work with the forces that be in order to change our lives and our world.

These similarities stated, why did the attitudes of medieval Europe remain true to their origin? Ideas about Pagans (with the definition skewed to mean all peoples not worshipping in a Judeo-Christian tradition) and Witches remain from the Dark Ages. Present day attitudes are therefore the same, although the reasons are often subconscious. Paganism in modern society is still not viewed as anything more than mere tomfoolery, adolescents wanting to rebel, misguided people ignoring the more important things in life in order to have fun and dance naked at wild parties in the woods on moonlit nights. But Witchcraft, even in the revised and reformed version of Wicca, still causes God-fearing Christians to spread pamphlets on the evils of Witches, protest the opening of Wiccan stores and the increasing number of public rituals, and harass people who have the courage to be proud of their religion and live openly as Witches.It can be reasonably argued that while Paganism has enjoyed a revival in this country, it is still markedly different from Christianity and does not offer the same benefits which has kept the Church in power for so long. For example, Christianity offers its followers an established doctrine, a set of moral laws that are easy to understand, and a feeling of "authenticity" which the "new" religion of Paganism cannot give. Neo-Paganism boasts of its loose structure and easy-going attitudes, but for the majority of people this is not a comfort at all. As a society, people need to feel secure in their beliefs, often relying on "experts" (i.e. clergy) to articulate these beliefs for them. The moral codes of Paganism are ambiguous at best, leaving vast amounts of room for debate and grey areas, and since Paganism can encompass any way of worship from Greek to shamanism to Celtic, there is no established doctrine per se.

Furthermore, while Christianity promises eternal rest in Heaven for good behavior, Paganism asserts the belief in reincarnation, promising countless lives on this earth in order to learn enough to attain enlightenment...and depending on which Pagan group you ask, what happens after that can range from reunion with the Source of the universe to absolutely nothing. Viewed in this way, though Paganism does and will continue to appeal to many people, it does not seem likely that it will ever replace the current social or religious structure. Witchcraft, on the other hand, indeed satisfies many of the same requirements for religion that Christianity does. Though it shares many aspects with Paganism there are still some distinct differences between the two. Witchcraft, for example, emphasizes a concept of balance in the world in the form of dualities: right and wrong, male and female, light and dark. While in some Pagan groups you may find worship of the Mother Goddess supreme, it is unlikely that a serious coven of Witches will honor the Goddess above the God, or vice versa. Witchcraft can also claim "authenticity" as an organized religion, since its roots lie directly in Celtic Druidism. Some traditions, such as the Welsh Witchcraft of the Church of Y Tylwyth Teg and Italian Stregheria can trace an initiatory lineage back as far as the 1200's.

Furthermore, whereas Paganism is extremely loose and all encompassing, Witchcraft does retain a good deal of structure from the days of old Europe. It offers rules for the formation of a coven and the workings of that coven; there exists a clergy for direction and instruction, and often a system of accepting and training new initiates. There are eight specific holidays, and lore and tradition that accompanies each one. While Witches and Pagans both follow the Rede, "An' it harm none, do what ye will," Witch covens often have their own set of established rules of conduct and behavior. For example, Gardner originally wrote nearly one hundred rules which he called "The Laws" for his tradition in the early 1960's, the Council of American Witches followed suit with their "Principles of Wicca" in 1974, and since then other traditions have formulated simpler, shorter, lists of rules for their members as well.Many of these aspects greatly conflict with Christian society, which has not only ignored a Goddess figure but has in fact relegated women to a subservient role in society. "They were so anxious to avoid goddess-worship that they represented God as generating the Son out of himself" (Robertson 22).

Nature is not a source of power; it is the playground which God had given Man to use as he deemed fit. As for ideas of magic and ritual, the Church has claimed time and again, as it did even as far back as the Nicene conventions in 787AD, that neither has a place in religion. Interestingly, this claim is ludicrous since no religion in the history of man has been without magic and ritual, though the terms may be different, and "the theory that religion is not only hostile to magic but quite separate from it is as fallacious as the distinction between religion and superstition...religion is 'what is allowed,' superstition 'what is not allowed'" (Robertson 14).

So, why does the Christian Church attack Witchcraft so fiercely? Though it may not be a conscious thought in the minds of today's religious leaders, it is likely that the motives are still political; the effect, however, is still the same. Since both Witchcraft and Christianity share so many basic spiritual ideas and satisfy many of the same spiritual needs of modern society, the population must examine the political structures, ethical laws, and social laws of the religion. "We must look not so much to genius for right thought as to genius for satisfying the common taste" (Robertson 16).Which group better satisfies the common taste? It is obvious that in the past few decades that taste has been radically changing.

Witchcraft is a threat today because, while the Church may have won the last round, its laws and doctrines are rapidly becoming outdated and the population is become disenchanted. Women are no longer accepting their minor role in society, and many feel alienated from a male deity who cast Woman as the bearer of Original Sin and whose religious founders viewed women as vessels of temptation and evil (Armstrong 124). Science has explained away many of the mysteries which the Church once attributed to God. The planet is slipping further and further into a state of environmental emergency caused by world industrialization, and new generations of people are awakening to the fact that the human race may be in danger of self-extinction. Thus, after hundreds of years of underground survival, secret meetings in the shadows, and careful preservation of wisdom from unsympathetic eyes, the Witches have come back into the light of present-day America. The Neo-Pagan movement which took root in the 1950's and flourished in the 60's and 70's has not only spread and grown, but has earned itself legal tax exemption status for its churches, and received legal recognition as a religion. Though these Pagan groups certainly help to open the eyes of ignorance, they have not really made the revival of Witchcraft more acceptable to Christian society. Witchcraft, however, is appealing to more and more modern men and women and is gaining solid ground. Furthermore, while the Church was able to win the Dark Ages using brutal tactics and force, those tactics are no longer available or applicable to today's population.So, the threat to the Church lies in that, as a political power, it is losing influence and importance and may not win this time. Conclusively, the war against the Witches has not ended but merely changed playing fields and updated its set of rules. The rivalry continues, as does the antagonism, and it is unlikely that attitudes will change without a radical shift in social paradigms which may leave the word "Christian" with as many dark connotations as the word "Witch" does now.